The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – and YOU

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – and YOU

This weekend was all about long walks, long drives and deep thoughts on happiness, forgiveness and how we treat and handle ourselves versus others. Yes, this IS a fitness and lifestyle blog, but if you’ve ever been coached by me, you know how I feel about being ready to do the real work – and that involves getting your head right with every step you take with your fitness. The process is one in the same.

Part 1 of my rant: Happiness

Enter the concept of being “happy” – man, that word/concept really has us in a spin these days. Chasing bliss…obsessed with the presence or absence of being happy we are. Life is ALL of the emotions, all of the struggles, all of the little moments – good and bad. If you think about it, the presence of happiness lies in the concept of contrasts. For, in order for our brains to process ‘happy’ we must also know what it feels like to be very UN-happy. Some peoples brains are wired more to remember the good old days, and some hang on the less than good days. That’s just part of who we are.

Sometimes we arrive at our pain or generalized unhappiness in a very punctuated way – when something happens to us that will forever change how we navigate and interact with the world. In other cases it happens bit by bit, moment by moment where we forget who we were; and like a shot of cold water in the face one day we hardly recognise ourselves, that you are simply not happy.

Becoming “more happy” isn’t about bubble baths and your favourite meals, its about getting down and dirty with what is holding you hostage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of bubble baths, but maybe you need to sit down with a financial planner and get real with your budget. Maybe you need to visit with that friend who betrayed you all those years ago and set about forgiving them. Scare yourself a little, shed some tears, for the contrasts do bring brighter days.

Whether its a good or a bad day, march on. Take note

Part 2 of my rant: Road blocks

Road blocks happen. It’s LIFE. You gotta deal , “yo”. There is plenty of crap in your world that you just can not control. You CAN control how you react to it, how you move on from it. I know you know this – but what if the road block is YOU? We continue to be served the same life lessons until we learn them – like waves lapping endlessly onto the shore. Sometimes we are aware, most often we are not. I am reminded of a meme:

I found this profound for a number of reasons, but I really think it comes into play when we question the actions of others when certain alternatives seem so obvious, but when WE mess up, we only see our own reasons for explaining away what we have done wrong to ourselves or others.

Part 3 of my rant: Human nature

This is a big one for me, which complicates my world now and then. Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. That’s just the way it is. We do good things for ourselves, we do bad things to ourselves as well. It’s OK to love the good things about people and one’s self, BUT we owe it to ourselves to protect ourselves from the bad by creating healthy boundaries and action plans for when things are not so great…like when someone who we care about is selfish, or when we go ahead and sabotage ourselves in a moment of weakness. It doesn’t take away from the good that is there. Objective here is to understand that we have one job to do in the face of adversity – observe the wrong, learn from it and figure out how to forgive and move forward with this one life we have. We ALL have a little bad and a little ugly inside.

Part 4: Losing focus

Don’t beat yourself up for losing focus or realizing yourself to be a shadow of what you once were or so far from where you want to be. There is a time for everything – and we can’t do it all at once. Sometimes we need to lose focus to GAIN perspective and focus on something new or revisit something you have failed at in the past. Its OK…I repeat, OK to lose focus. Get to the heart of what’s holding you back. Sit with it, observe it. Be quiet and still. Your clarity and passion will come.

Conclusion – Read this how you will. We can keep it light and apply all of this to how you approach your personal fitness and goals – to march forward on the journey, follow the ups and downs as they will come. To be gentle and tough all in the same breath. Look back on your hardships when you reach a place of good fortune – you deserve a good pat on the back. Know there are struggles ahead but that with each struggle is an opportunity to forgive and move forward with a little bit of introspection. We get one life. We can not afford to wait for better days to do the hard work ahead. If you need this to be a little bit more, the message is the same. Do the work, feel what you need to feel. Make peace. Live.

XOXO – Coach Meg

P.S we have a NEW kickboxing instructor, Kyle starting this week … AND Pilates starts on Wednesday night! Step out of your comfort zone and take those first steps to being back on your game.uprisefit.com/schedule